


Waiting For You

by Calmerion Anon (angrymermaids)



Series: Calmerion [7]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Ghost Sex, M/M, Skyrim Kink Meme, The ghost has a name now, angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:39:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2193822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrymermaids/pseuds/Calmerion%20Anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dragonborn stays the night at a little inn in the sticks and makes an unexpected friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For You

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [this prompt](http://skyrimkinkmeme.livejournal.com/4580.html?thread=8587492#t8587492) on the Skyrim Kink Meme.

“You’ll be wanting to rent Tiber Septim’s room, I take it?”  
  
Calmerion peered at the innkeeper through eyes that ached with fatigue. “Does it have a bed? If so, yes. Please.” He was standing in a puddle which had formed under his sodden, dripping cloak. The hood hadn’t helped; every inch of him was soaked to the skin. His feet sloshed in boots that had been advertised as watertight, apparently that applied to water on the inside as well as the outside. He was shaking. The icy thunderstorm that still raged outside was only part of it. Inside the layers of drenched leather and cloth, he was burning up. The dead air inside some rotten cave was probably responsible.  
  
The room, no matter how many dead famous people had slept there before, looked like most bedrooms in Skyrim, complete with a very cozy-looking bed piled with plush furs and fresh sheets and blankets. That was the only thing Calmerion was interested in at the moment. The innkeeper was relating some history about some battle that had happened here centuries ago. Something about Reachmen. Something about Nords. Something about Tiber Septim. But Calmerion’s head was heavy and hurting and he just wanted to lie down.  
  
“Leave your wet things outside the door and I’ll hang them by the fire,” she said, her story finished, but she frowned when she noticed his flushed cheeks and unhappy expression. “Are you feeling all right?”  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“To bed with you, then. I’ll make some tea.”  
  
Calmerion closed the door when she left, leaned against it for a moment, and then dropped his satchel. He began to shiver uncontrollably as he peeled off his wet clothes, which he left in a pile outside the door. He dug into his satchel, sifting among the plant clippings and animal bits for something that would relieve his suffering, but it all blurred together and he gave up trying.  
  
 _It’s not like I’ve never been sick before_ , he thought through the haze, annoyed with himself despite everything. Still, it was all he could do to wrap himself in blankets and collapse onto the bed, where he was dead to the world before the innkeeper’s tea was ready.  
  
\-----  
  
He slept for fifteen hours, motionless as a corpse. Rain drummed on the roof. Thunder rumbled overhead.  
  
He dreamed in fragments, mostly about his dogs. Their velvety ears and dark fur and wet noses which, when pressed against his face at the earliest crack of dawn, were always his first impression of a new day. How they jumped and barked like they thought they would never see him again when he just came inside from checking on his mushroom log. Hot summer nights when he’d eat dinner on the back porch and they would lie sprawled on the cool grass, only occasionally lifting their heads to whine for a scrap. The way they instantly viewed whoever Calmerion brought home as their new best friend. The way they kept trying to herd the neighborhood kids like a flock of sheep.  
  
Barking dogs filled his dreams, all shapes and sizes, and even his two waist-high Lillandril alaunts blended into the teeming pack—shaggy Nordic wolfhounds, slender greyhounds, little curly lapdogs, friendly mongrels and stocky, focused mastiffs, all barking and jumping and wagging their tails, licking at his hands.  
  
He stirred, rolled over, and the dream faded into nothingness. The rain petered out and started again. The sun began to lighten the heavy clouds blanketing the mountains, and Calmerion woke with a start to the sensation of fingers caressing his hair.  
  
“Hunh? Who’s there?” he said, thick with sleep. But the room was quiet and empty, no sign of anyone but himself. His satchel was still leaning against the door, right where he’d put it the night before, so no one had come in that way.  
  
He was sure it had happened. It felt too real to be a dream, and the memory wasn’t slipping away in the face of reality, like dreams did. Besides, when he rolled onto his back and pressed a hand to his face, it was cool. The fever was gone. His head still ached, though, and his mouth was dry. And he was very definitely awake now, no chance of going back to sleep, so he rolled out of bed with a groan, one blanket still wrapped around his shoulders.

His clothes were dry and folded outside the door. He dressed, tried and failed to make his hair lie flat, and washed the sleep and sweat from his face before moving to leave. When Calmerion first ended up in Skyrim, he swore that no matter what happened in this barbarian wilderness, he would never give up grooming as thoroughly as he would have at home, because that was all he had left to remind him of who he was. Now, months later, he barely even thought about it. His old self would have been completely horrified. In fact, his old self would have been completely horrified about a lot of things, but at least grooming was something that theoretically fell under his control. Breakfast was another one of those things. And, at the moment, it was the most important item on his agenda.  
  
Gentle fingers brushed his cheek.  
  
 _Hjalti_.  
  
Calmerion paused. He took his hand off the doorknob and looked back around the empty room, frowning.  
  
“I’m not afraid of ghosts or a man’s touch, so if you’re trying to haunt me, it’s not working,” he said.  
  
No response. He waited another moment, shrugged, and went out into the taproom, where breakfast was already underway. On Loredas it was venison sausage, which was very good, and sliced tomatoes, which Calmerion politely declined.  
  
“You should have some, they’re good for what ails you,” the innkeeper advised as she poured him the tea she’d promised the night before. “Good to see you back among the living, by the way. Feeling better?”  
  
“Yes, thank you.”  
  
Calmerion continued eating while she drifted around with a broom, chatting as she swept. There had been a few other patrons last night, but he was the only one currently in for breakfast besides the innkeeper and her serious son. “We don’t get many elves all the way out here. The way I hear it, they’re all at that College in Winterhold,” she said. “Sometimes we get foreign folk heading to Solitude or Markarth, but we’re pretty far off the road. I like to think we’re the best kept secret in the Reach.”  
  
“I’m actually on business for the College,” Calmerion replied. “I wasn’t planning on stopping, but I started feeling low halfway out from Rorikstead. You keep a very comfortable inn.” Even if it does have a randy ghost. His breakfast finished, he fell silent again. The fire crackled behind him and the straw broom rustled softly over the floorboards, which creaked as the innkeeper circled around the corners. Calmerion rested one elbow on the bar and looked over his shoulder at her. “Is the name ‘Hjalti’ familiar to you?”  
  
The innkeeper tilted her head slightly. “No. I might’ve heard it somewhere.”  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
\-----  
  
For some reason, the book Urag requested was in a troll den not far from the Old Hroldan Inn. Calmerion had no idea why a bandit had stolen it, lugged it all the way across Skyrim, and taken refuge with it in a smelly cave only to be (mostly) eaten by trolls, but it seemed to be in reasonably decent shape when he finally picked it off the bandit’s corpse. It wasn’t even very bloody. He also had no idea why this particular book was special. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was just part of Urag’s hoard and he wanted it back for its own sake, whether it was a rare edition or just another book.  
  
 _The Arcturian Heresy_. It seemed kind of dense and annoying when he flipped through it, but one word jumped out at him.  _Hjalti_.  
  
“All right, let’s find out who you are,” he muttered as he secured the book in his satchel and headed back to Old Hroldan for the night.  
  
\-----  
  
It rained again after the sun had gone down, after Calmerion had returned to the inn’s warmth and shelter, after he tossed his clothes over the back of a chair and sat back with a pillow behind his neck and his feet hanging off the foot of the bed. He stretched out and watched the ceiling for a moment, listening to the patter of raindrops on the thatch above him. With a sigh, he reached for  _The Arcturian Heresy_.  
  
The candles on the nightstand burned low as he read late into the night. He’d only intended to take a look at it, but it seemed this wasn’t a book one could casually peruse.

Most of it was semi-incomprehensible and he was three chapters in before he got one mention of Hjalti, and he also got the feeling that he was missing out on a lot of information that was supposed to be common knowledge. At the same time, he got an eerie sense that he was meant to find and read this book at this time and in this place.  
  
Which was, of course, ridiculous. Calmerion believed in many things. Fate was not one of them and he got tired of people telling him that he was “meant” to do something or other. Everything that happened to him was the result of his own choices.  
  
Well, most things. He wasn’t sure how to classify the rest.  
He rubbed his eyes and continued reading.  
  
 _It is the rumbling of the Greybeards that wake him. Though the Empire has crumbled, there are rumors that a chosen one will come to restore it. This new Emperor will defeat the Elves and rule a united Tamriel. Naturally, Wulfharth thinks he is the figure of prophecy. He goes directly to High Hrothgar to hear the Greybeards speak. When they do, Ysmir is blasted to ash again. He is not the chosen one. It is a warrior youth from High Rock. As the Grey Wind goes to find this boy, he hears the Greybeards' warning: remember the color of betrayal, King Wulfharth.  
  
The Western Reach was at war. Cuhlecain, the King of Falkreath in West Cyrodiil, was in a bad situation. To make any bid at unifying the Colovian Estates, he needed to secure his northern border, where the Nords and Reachmen had been fighting for centuries. He allies with Skyrim at the Battle of Old Hrol'dan. Leading his forces was Hjalti Early-Beard. Hjalti was from the island kingdom of Alcaire, in High Rock, and would become Tiber Septim, the First Emperor of Tamriel._  
  
“Bollocks. You are fucking kidding me,” Calmerion said aloud. The room did not answer.  
  
He kept reading. He had no idea how late it was, only that his candles were now too dim to read by, so he called up a glowing bulb of light and set it floating over the pages.  
  
 _Hjalti was a shrewd tactician, and his small band of Colovian troops and Nord berserkers broke the Reachman line, forcing them back beyond the gates of Old Hrol'dan. A siege seemed impossible, as Hjalti could expect no reinforcements from Falkreath. That night a storm came and visited Hjalti's camp. It spoke with him in his tent. At dawn, Hjalti went up to the gates, and the storm followed just above his head. Arrows could not penetrate the winds around him. He shouted down the walls of Old Hrol'dan, and his men poured in. After their victory, the Nords called Hjalti Talos, or Stormcrown.  
  
Cuhlecain, with his new invincible general, unifies West Cyrodiil in under a year. No one can stand before Hjalti's storms._  
  
Calmerion rolled his eyes. “And the Empire criticizes the Dominion for using propaganda,” he grumbled, and turned a page.  
  
Now that the name Talos had been brought into the narrative, Calmerion’s patience for the list of Tiber Septim’s exploits was starting to wear thin. The mysterious Hjalti, a young man of uncertain origin who had been called up by the Greybeards just as he had, faded into the story of kings and gods and became the old villain of the elves, the wielder of Numidium, the harbinger of death and humiliation for his people, the stubborn champion of humanity and mortality.  
  
 _Meanwhile, Tiber Septim crowns himself the First Emperor of Tamriel. He lives until he is 108, the richest man in history. All aspects of his early reign are rewritten. Still, there are conflicting reports of what really happened, and this is why there is such confusion over such questions as: Why does Alcaire claim to be the birthplace of Talos, while other sources say he came from Atmora? Why does Tiber Septim seem to be a different person after his first roaring conquests? Why does Tiber Septim betray his battlemage? Is the Mantella the heart of the battlemage or is it the heart of Tiber Septim?_  
  
“Why does it matter? All of it’s lies anyway,” Calmerion grumbled. “And why am I supposed to be impressed by someone living to 108?”

He closed the book and was about to fling it to one side, but remembered just in time that it belonged to Urag and so instead he placed it carefully on the nightstand. With the idea of Talos in his head he was too annoyed to sleep, not even after the day’s exertion and last night’s illness, which still squeezed his temples and demanded rest. He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the rafters, thinking about nothing and everything and why in Oblivion was this damn bed so short?  _He_  wasn’t too tall, everything in Skyrim was just built for goblins.  
  
He closed his eyes. The floating ball of magelight flickered out like a candle in the breeze. The sound of creaking leather and soft breath cut through the silence, and Calmerion’s eyes flew open.  
  
There was another…  _presence_  in the room.  
  
He was a wisp of silver standing by the door, shifting and shimmering in the darkness, but at the same time he was strangely solid. If he turned the right way, Calmerion could glimpse a hint of color, a reminder of the living flesh and blood of which his ghost was only an echo. Red hair and beard, fair skin sprinkled with freckles, heavy iron and steel armor backed with leather. Piercing blue eyes. He stood, not moving, just watching with an expression that Calmerion couldn’t quite make out. That he was a warrior was obvious, but he didn’t hold himself with a boast and a swagger like most. In fact, he looked more like he’d just arrived at the welcome end of a long journey, leaning his weight on one foot with one hand resting on the door frame.  
  
“Hello,” Calmerion said. As long as they weren’t trying to kill him, he saw no reason not to be civil to ghosts. “Is this your room? Sorry. I’ve rented it for the night.”  
  
When the ghost spoke, it came out as a shadow of a living man’s voice. At once it filled the room and yet sounded only in Calmerion’s ears.  
  
 _Is that you, Hjalti?_  
  
“No. My name is Calmerion.” The ghost didn’t respond. He just kept looking at him, his expression still unreadable. “Hjalti died centuries ago. And from the looks of it, so did you.”  
  
 _Don’t you remember me?_  
  
Calmerion had not expected to hear such hurt in his voice. No response seemed appropriate, so he said nothing, trying to piece together the book he’d read and the ghost in his room and the fact that he hadn’t hallucinated the ghost touching him earlier, touching him like a lover, after centuries of waiting and drifting in this borderland beyond death.  
  
 _You promised you would make me your sworn brother_ , the ghost said.  _Your life’s companion. Don’t you remember?_  
  
“You… died,” Calmerion pointed out, but the part of himself that he would never admit to, the part that was a romantic, that part was starting to take the ghost’s side. In addition to being a human tyrant masquerading as a Divine, Tiber Septim was also apparently a terrible, selfish lover who abandoned the ghost’s memory here when he died, when he was no longer of any use.  
  
 _Yes. For almost seven hundred years I have waited for you to return._  The ghost shifted, dissolved, and re-formed at Calmerion’s bedside. He removed his ghostly horned helmet and set it on the nightstand, right next to the copy of The Arcturian Heresy, and opened his hands.  _Why did you leave me here for so long? I’ve wandered and wandered, but I couldn’t find you. We fought side by side in two campaigns, we slept side by side every night. You saved my life so many times. I… where have you been?_  
  
“Well, I’ve spent most of the last forty years in Lillandril, but I can’t speak for Hjalti. Some people will tell you he became a god, but the truth is that he’s also dead. Very dead.” But Calmerion regretted his words. He couldn’t stay flippant, not now, and when he spoke again, his voice felt softer. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what he was thinking. Maybe he  _has_  been looking for you this whole time, but he couldn’t find you either.”  
  
The ghost seemed to hear him talking, but he didn’t seem to understand what he meant.  _You burn bright with the Dragonblood, Hjalti._  He reached out, hesitant, and touched Calmerion’s cheek.  
  
He shivered at both the touch and the implication of his words. “I… had a fever?”

_I recognize your spirit._  
  
Sometimes Calmerion could forget about being Dragonborn. When he sat drinking in an inn, eyes closed, taking in a bard’s lute or snippets of strangers’ conversations all around him, his worries lay dormant, and if he tried hard enough he could almost imagine that he was sitting in the Gray Rose in Alinor City, drinking brandy instead of mead and soaking in warmth that came not from a roaring fire but from the sun and sea. Or when he was with a lover, focusing on every moan and every gasping breath they made, knowing that he was the one making it happen, because he was good at it, not because of some Dragonblood that he never asked for.  
  
Most of the time, however, he couldn’t forget.  
  
The ghost smiled a little. His face was battle-hardened but weary, and the smile softened it further. His hand felt very real against Calmerion’s cheek, calloused from years of fighting, warm and alive even though he was not. Perhaps it truly was the soul that made a person alive, not the body. He leaned down and kissed his lips once, gently, his hand not moving.  
  
 _I’ve waited so long to see you. To touch you again._  
  
Well. This was not a situation that Calmerion had ever imagined being in, but now that the opportunity had presented itself, he found himself surprisingly interested.  
  
An old lover had once said to him,  _Calmerion, you could almost be a Dibellan sometimes_ , to which he had laughed and said it wasn’t a terrible idea, even if he didn’t recognize the Imperial pantheon on principle. He was open to almost anything with almost anyone, elves, humans, Argonians, men, women, it didn’t matter. It had never really mattered, to be honest, even when the Thalmor’s expectations had kept him on a steady diet of Altmer. And the fact that the ghost was a little bit… incorporeal… did not make him unattractive. Even beyond life he had a warrior’s physique, and Calmerion had always had a thing for redheads.  
  
“Look, I’m not opposed to it,” he said. “I just want to be clear. I am not Hjalti. I’m not even the same species at Hjalti. I don’t want you to feel as if you’ve been unfaithful if you suddenly realize I’m not him. Nor do I want you to feel as if I’ve taken advantage.” This was a surreal conversation to be having with a ghost, but apparently the intractability of Nords lasted for centuries after death.  
  
The ghost responded by kissing him again. It was as real as any Calmerion had ever had, with living warmth and breath, the feeling of his lips and beard, a unique taste and smell. He hesitated only a little, still wondering if the ghost had understood what he said, but… the ghost clearly wanted this. And so did he. If he could help to alleviate centuries of loneliness, so much the better. The ghost’s silver essence swirled and faded for a moment, his hands not leaving Calmerion’s skin, the caress of his breath not leaving Calmerion’s cheek. He took shape on the bed next to him, looking softer without his armor, and Calmerion reached out to touch his face in return. He made a small, disappointed sound when his hand went right through him.  
  
“I want to touch you,” he murmured. “Why can’t I touch you, when you can touch me?”  
  
Instead of answering, the ghost cupped Calmerion’s cheeks in both hands and rolled close, kissing him deeply, thoroughly, savoring his mouth and neck and jaw and running his hands over every curve of living muscle and bone. He slid one of his legs over Calmerion’s and straddled his hips, rocking slowly, taking his time. He was aroused, aching for someone other than the elf he had in bed at this moment. Calmerion could do nothing but close his eyes and relax his back and feel the ghost rubbing against him. A twinge of regret squeezed his heart when he tried and failed once more to touch him back. He was hard as well, his own body receptive to the sensation of being touched even though his mind despised the idea of taking everything and giving nothing in return.

The ghost’s hands stilled on Calmerion’s shoulders. He shifted his hips and sat back, not pulling away entirely, but putting a little distance between them. One silvery hand, deceptively solid and warm, still rested over Calmerion’s heart.  
  
 _You’re not him._  
  
“No. I must have said it ten times,” Calmerion replied with a crooked smile.  
  
 _I heard, but… I was so sure._  The ghost looked away.  _You feel like him, but you don’t. Your soul burns like his. It’s so bright, I couldn’t see much else._  He lifted a finger and ran it along the edge of Calmerion’s right ear. Calmerion instinctively leaned into the touch.  _You’re an elf. But you’re Dragonborn?_  
  
“Yes. I don’t understand it either.”  
  
The ghost pulled his hands away.  _I’m sorry. I’ve disturbed your rest._  He was fading. His weight on Calmerion’s lap lifted. Only the thinnest wisp of his presence remained, a glimpse of his hair, his downturned lips and empty blue eyes.  
  
“You didn’t disturb me,” Calmerion said gently. “You must be tired. Why not lie down with me, just for a little while?”  
  
The room was empty. The ghost had gone. Calmerion waited, barely breathing, and then sank back with a sigh and tried not to be disappointed. He wasn’t Hjalti, so why would the ghost stay?  
  
But he was now very awake and very aroused and he couldn’t take care of the former without first taking care of the latter. He tucked one arm behind his head, sighed, and gave himself a slow stroke. It didn’t feel right to touch himself to the thought of the ghost’s very real hands and mouth, not now he was aware that Calmerion was not his love. He tried to clear the fantasy out of his mind and instead recalled a favorite memory, one that never really got old—the memory of drizzling honey over Lydia’s naked body and licking it off, that was a good one—  
  
 _Did you mean it?_  
  
Calmerion nearly fell off the bed. The ghost was back, hovering just above him. He was still undressed and still beautiful.  
  
“Sorry, did I mean what?”  
  
 _Your invitation._  
  
“Yes,” Calmerion replied immediately. “I meant all of it.” He couldn’t help but smile. “Invitation’s still open, if you changed your mind.”  
  
He  _had_  changed his mind. He didn’t need to say anything at first when he joined the elf in bed once more, this time touching in exploration, his fingers seeking approval. He asked for permission, readily responded to Calmerion’s feedback, stroked his ears and whispered his name. He ground against his cock and took him in hand and stroked him until he was pliant and breathless.   
  
But still his attention was not meant for Calmerion. It was something he had to remember when the weary lover whispered gentle encouragement against his skin as he came, and after when a ghostly arm wrapped around his waist and held him close. They lay together for a few long moments, saying nothing. When he closed his eyes, Calmerion might have been lying next to someone of flesh and blood, but when he looked, the ghost was still swirling and shifting, the memory of his red hair spread across the pillow next to Calmerion’s.   
  
Calmerion wished he could reach out and touch him. “What was—what  _is_  your name?”  
  
 _Ormarr. They called me Ormarr Hammer-Fist._  
  
“Nice.” Calmerion scooted closer. He couldn’t tell if Ormarr could feel him, not just his bright soul but his body too, but it still seemed more intimate. “I’m glad you decided to stay. It must have been lonely.”  
  
 _Loneliness, companionship… nothing is the same beyond death. I hardly remember what it feels like. Any of it._  
  
That made Calmerion’s head ache. He didn’t ask the ghost to elaborate.  
  
“Is it your love for Hjalti that keeps you here?” he asked instead. “Or is Sovngarde closed to you for some reason?”  
  
 _I am still looking for him. Sovngarde calls to me, but I can’t…_ Ormarr laid a hand on Calmerion’s arm.  _He promised me his sword. That we would always fight together. The barbarians of the Reach took it instead, and their magic still repels me._  
  
“I’ll find it.”  
  
 _I wouldn’t ask you to._  
  
“That’s why I’m offering.” Calmerion closed his eyes and smiled. “I’m good at finding things for people.”

Calmerion was alone in bed when he woke.  
  
A shriek and a crash of dropped crockery roused him, in fact. He tugged on his pants and peered out the door to see the innkeeper crouching behind the counter.  
  
“All right?” Calmerion asked.  
  
She shivered. “There’s a g-ghost!”  
  
He looked up. Ormarr was standing by the fire, one foot braced against the hearth, drinking from a ghostly mead horn as casually as he would have done seven hundred years ago. His helmet sat on a nearby table and his long, braided hair fell in silver ropes around his shoulders. He looked a bit more solid than he had when he first materialized in Calmerion’s room, as if perhaps a night of companionship had given his spirit strength. He didn’t seem to notice the innkeeper, Calmerion realized, and he wondered if he, with his bright dragon soul, was the only person Ormarr could see.   
  
“Good morning, Ormarr,” Calmerion said. The ghost looked up.  
  
 _Is it morning?_  
  
“Yes.” The elf grinned at the innkeeper’s white, shocked face. “This is Ormarr Hammer-Fist, Tiber Septim’s most trusted warrior. He’s perfectly friendly, but a bit lost.”  
  
“Mara have mercy.” She reached for the pottery shards at her feet with hands that shook.“You… you brought him here, didn’t you?” she accused weakly. “Some kind of… dark magic…”  
  
“Certainly not. I don’t practice dark magic. And even if I did, I was as surprised as you are to see him last night. He’s probably been floating around here for centuries,” he said, and then realized that the innkeeper would probably not appreciate knowing that. Sure enough, she looked up at him with an expression of naked horror. He tried to shrug it off. “He’s looking for a particular sword. I said I’d find it for him.”  
  
She shook her head and shuddered. “He’s going to be in my inn until you do, isn’t he?”  
  
“Eh… probably. Don’t worry. I’ll be quick.” With that, he ducked back into his room to finish dressing.  
  
\-----  
  
Calmerion returned to the inn late that evening, singed and a little bloodied but bearing Hjalti’s sword. It turned out the Forsworn weren’t as easy to sneak past as most people were. The innkeeper was going about her work and refusing to look at Ormarr, who was sitting by the fire and sharpening a knife that was as ghostly as its owner.  
  
“Sorry it took so long, I ran into a bit of trouble,” Calmerion said to the innkeeper. She gave him a strange, unreadable stare. He just smiled and turned to Ormarr. “Here you go.”  
  
The ghost stood. Calmerion held out the ancient blade—it was rusty and neglected and lacking a sheath, but Ormarr seemed to recognize it as he had recognized the soul of a dragon. His eyes widened and he reached out, hesitating just a little.  
  
 _You found it._  
  
“Finding it wasn’t the hard part,” Calmerion laughed. Ormarr smiled then, wrapped his fingers around the tattered, leather-braided grip, and lifted the sword off Calmerion’s open palms. “That’s the right sword, isn’t it? The Forsworn tend to have a lot of weapons lying around, so… I could have picked up the wrong one by mistake.”  
  
 _No. It’s his. I recognize it. Thank you, friend._  He was already fading, along with the sword, which was steel and as solid as anything else in the room.  _I will never forget your kindness._  
  
“It was nothing.”  
  
 _I must go now. I will be with him again in Sovngarde._  
  
He was gone. No shifting silver trace of him remained in the inn, not his voice, not his body, not even his helmet, which had still been sitting on a table. It had disappeared as well. Calmerion took in a deep breath and let it out, slowly. He wasn’t exactly sure how he should feel about any of this. Positive, definitely. But beyond that, he had no idea. It wasn’t an experience he’d ever imagined himself having.  
  
Soft breath brushed his cheek. A kiss, warm and gentle and a little scratchy with whiskers, pressed against the corner of his mouth. And then it lifted. The inn was quiet.  
  
The innkeeper looked up. “Is he gone?”  
  
Calmerion waited a moment before responding. “I think so, yes.”  
  
“Thank Talos.”  
  
Calmerion consciously restrained himself from rolling his eyes.


End file.
